The wiretapping law has gone through, it is now a reality.

I'm very disappointed.

I'm disappointed because of the whole circus around it. It's obvious that some wanted this to go through no matter what. In spite of massive protests from all sides of the political spectrum (I can't recall when I last saw people from the left, right and center unite as I have seen a couple of days ago). The law was rushed through.

I'm disappointed with the politicians who were clearly against but let the party line decide. I feel betrayed, even though I haven't voted for them.
Only one stands out, (Camilla Lindberg (fp))[http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/artikel_1387439.svd]. That's one who seems to have a spine. No matter what I might think of her opinions otherwise, she's a hero today and has my respect.

Added:
I just read a (blog entry)[http://minamoderatakarameller.blogspot.com/2008/06/sluta-mobba-enskilda-personer-nu.html] that reminds me not to kick on people that couldn't stand against the pressure, and that the real problem is with the establishment that will try to force people to go against their own opinion. Xe's right, and it's true, I've an issue with that. It's disrespectful.

After weeks of small articles in the middle of the newspapers, the major media in Sweden has finally started reacting to what's happening in Sweden right now.

In short, the National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets Radioanstalt - FRA) has proposed a modernisation of the Swedish laws on tapping communication to include e-mail, fax and SMS. The word is that they will only controll communication that passes the Swedish border.

That sounds all sweet and dandy but as all computer nerds know, just because you're e-mailing to another Swedish address doesn't mean the message stays within the country, it's very likely it will make a trip through servers standing in another country (there are cases when e-mail has made a trip around the globe before reaching destination). And then we have all swedes with an e-mail account at Google (gmail), Microsoft (hotmail) and other foreign e-mail services, they will automatically be part of the flow that gets filtered.

A lot of people have reacted and there are a number of sites and lists where this is discussed, protest signature are collected and so on. Some polititians are hard pressed to follow party lines (and vote for the law) on one hand and their voters (who have protested the law) on the other. I feel for them, mostly with pity, and I hope they will have the courage to make the right choice!

In the mean time, should this law come through and get implemented, I'm making myself ready to make FRA's job as hard as possible, by strongly encrypting my e-mail if possible (hey, you, if you're a known recipient, get yourself a PGP or X.509 key and cert and gimme the public part, mmm'kay?), include random words or randomly encrypted strings to trigger their machinery, and generally be as much a pain in the nether regions as possible. As far as I know, I won't be alone doing this.

Links to articles and discussions:

http://www.stoppafralagen.nu/
http://www.thelocal.se/12428/20080613/ (for english speakers) http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=2502&a=794124
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article2692498.ab
http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/1.1200063/080616-stoppa-fra-lagen
http://www.expressen.se/debatt/1.1200067/fra-lagen-hindrar-fria-forskningen (shows how the proposed law can inhibit research)
http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/artikel_1369317.svd

Let's just hope this law doesn't come through...

I think I've seen the sense of "the customer is always right" in a new light today. I've witnessed someone waking up earlier than normal to do a job, and when I asked why so early, I got the answer "It's a customer!" (not literally, but that was the basic sense of it), and I caught it as "If the customer says a specific time, then that's when you do it."

Now, I know far from all the facts, so I can't even come close to knowing the truth. It smacks me as a bit curious, though, that so much decision, on a Sunday no less, was left to the customer. I mean, had I heard something like "it was the most practical for all involved", I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

However, this entry isn't really about that specific deal, it's rather about a curiousity on how to relate to a customer, and most of all trying to understand how others relate to customers compared to my own way.

You see, I don't at all buy the old "the customer is always right" mantra. I do think that you always need to listen to a customer's needs and be prepared to answer them the best way you can. It's simly the respectful thing to do, as with any other kind of relationship. However, I don't think it's too much to ask the same kind of respect back, which means that the customer will have to be ready to listen for what I have to say about what they want to do, as well as what I need to do the task with the best quality possible, including timing and how that fits my daily schedule. The rest is negotiation around what's the most practical for everyone involved, myself, the customer's personel, my collegues...

How about you?

I stumble upon it a little now and then, more often lately through talking with more diverse groups: gender-neutral pronouns. That varying inventions go from somewhat elegant to fairly clumsy, but I must say that this is the first time I got to see one that I find plain ugly!

I'm quite a bit ambivalent about the use of gender-neutral pronouns myself. Sure, I can understand that it's practical, but it also strips us from one not so small thing in the tapestry of what makes us all special and beautiful, our gender.

Sometimes, I wonder if those advocating gender-neutral pronouns do it from a perspective of personal wounds for having been subjected to the stigma that some assign to the gender itself (what's better, a man or a woman? The never ending discussion or attitude (see the typical salary differences in some professions as an example), and complete bollocks if you ask me). I do understand the hurt, but I feel just as hurt if someone wants to strip me of something that is very much part of who I am, and would feel quite offended if anyone referred to me as "xe" in any way in anything but formal text. And it doesn't really help anyone, except for practical purposes when you're tired of writing "he or she", "his or her" and so on.

In the end, I guess it's up to everyone how he or she wants to do things, and this sentence should make my preference quite clear :-).

I just viewed this video. I'm feeling sick, and lack words. Yet, I hope this will move around, so the global consciousness of this world awakes to this and starts moving to change it. If you read this, and you were horrified as well, spread the word. This misstreatment has to stop, and informing those who don't know is the best first step.

What's up with women and hair? Or should I ask "what's up with men and hair on women?"?

I just read a thread in a forum I take part in, where a few women talked about waxing their legs, how they kept bruising themselves, recepies for alternate things to use instead of wax and stuff like that...

The consistent thing I keep hearing is "it hurts like hell, but I have to do it". Not exactly with those words, but the content seems to be the same all the time. It's like some compulsive thing. I'd like to say that if it hurts like that, don't do it!

It's not at all hard to imagine that there's male pressure behind this hair thing, and I guess it goes with the whole female beauty broohaha that's been going on for a while in all kinds of magazines and other places.

I think I will simply never understand the need for hair removal, make-up and the rest of the stuff that's designed to hide who you are. I appreciate much more the person that doesn't hide herself, that dares show her real self. That's where real human (and female) beauty is to me, not in the masks that are put on top of it.

The same goes for the feel. I've always felt a little uncomfortable touching a face that's covered with make-up, there's this eery feeling of the unreal and the possibility of smearing. Real skin, unmasked, now there's a nice touch!

Today, I'm rather happy with HP. They do listen to use techies, and they have backed down from threatening. A fuller story is found here.

Pfewww...

It seems that HP backed down their DMCA threat, so my ponderings are over...

For now, I'm investigating some problems with compiling OpenSSL for VMS 6 compatibility. The culprit is basically strcasecmp(), which wasn't part of the C RTL in VMS 6.

Because of recent events connected to HP (see this article on news.com), I'm gonna take a few days to ponder if I want to still support anything connected to HP.

Hint: HP owns OpenVMS. Since that's my favorite OS, this is a biggie.

This is a sad day. I hope to see happier days.

HP bought Compaq who bought Digital... So, HP owns my favorite operating system, VMS. Unfortunately, HP seems to have shithead leadership who'd use the DMCA to stop people from finding bugs (see the recent events as written in this article at news.com) and exposing vulnerabilities (it's well known by now that trying to hide vulnerabilities is the worst way to secure a system).

Because of this, I will really have to ponder if I want to continue to support anything that is connected to HP.

This is a very sad day...